Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced February 19 that the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth has been awarded the first Primary Heart Attack Center (PHAC) certification by the Joint Commission and American Heart Association. The certification standardizes and improves coordinated systems of care for identification, assessment, monitoring,…

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Editor's Note The implementation of an aviation-style computerized surgical safety checklist displayed on a large, centrally located screen and operated by the anesthesia provider improved checklist performance in this study. A total of 671 cases were observed before and 547 cases after implementation of the computerized checklist system. The proportion…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 5 announced that a new performance improvement (PI) Accelerate PI dashboard is now available for accredited hospitals. It is posted in the “Resources and Tools” section of the Joint Commission Connect extranet site. The dashboard, which is intended to be a springboard for…

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Editor's Note In this study, an outpatient fracture pathway greatly improved the efficiency and timeliness of care, and it reduced costs. A total of 187 patients during the preintervention period and 308 patients during the intervention period were eligible for the ambulatory pathway. Those managed as outpatients increased from 1.6%…

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Editor's Note A survey by IMV Medical Information Division finds that the number of MRI procedures performed in the US rose 8% from 39 million in 2018 to an all-time high of some 42 million in 2019, the January 15 AuntMinnie.com reports. A total of 17% of respondents gave high…

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The Best in OR Business Award is presented annually at the OR Business Management Conference to recognize an outstanding leader who has saved on costs, increased OR utilization, improved patient safety, or otherwise streamlined the surgical services department. The 2020 award will be presented to Vikram Tiwari, PhD, associate professor…

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At Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System in Richmond, implementation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) incorporates principles of Lean thinking, a management methodology that emphasizes “…maximize[ing] customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources,” according to the Lean Enterprise Institute.1 Several…

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Of the approximately 57 million surgical procedures performed annually in the US, it is estimated that hospital inpatient procedures (overnight admissions) account for less than 20% of cases. Many procedures once performed in hospital outpatient surgery departments (HOPDs) have moved to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) over the past 15 years,…

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Starting the first cases of the day on time is key for maintaining the OR schedule. A delay in first case on-time starts (FCOTS) can lead to less OR utilization, greater facility costs, and dissatisfaction among physicians, OR staff, and patients. It’s a problem in many surgical suites, but when…

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Editor's Note In this study from Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, a first case on-time starts (FCOTS) improvement initiative was linked to a higher frequency of FCOTS, which was independently associated with last case on-time ends (LCOTE) and decreased OR overtime costs. Of 12,073 cases (6,095 pre- vs…

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